Temptation Tuesday

No…not that kind of temptation. (Get your mind out of the gutter. There isn’t enough room in here for both of us.)

Well I hope my writing samples tempt you to read more of my work. This particular story is part of an ongoing series. The first few chapters can be found in an earlier post called, Sample Sunday. (I highly recommend you check that out before reading the rest of this post.) I changed the title to Sunset because this is an idea that wormed its way into my head after hearing about Gliese_581_g, a planet that could possibly support humans or some other type of life form twenty light years away from Earth. In my theory – which does not include warp drive – it should take twenty years to get there, if you traveled at the speed of light. To help conserve power and ration, every one is frozen for a year at a time. Every month two souls are unfrozen so they can check on the ship and make sure everything is going as it should…

SUNSET

Friday, February 28th, 2521; 1845 hrs

Wow, some people are just consumed with lazyness. The first part of my letter to you this month is a rant, in case you haven’t noticed that yet.

Before I start I must say I am glad you took another injection, now I know I will see you when I get home. Anyway, the rule is, you wait for your relief to fully come out of sleep so you can pass off any information on anything that happened the past year or more. Well the Singlers, the only two married people we have on board, Tania and Darryl, decided it would be funny if they disabled Wesley and lock him in an airlock. It took a whole day to find him. I’ll tell you, some people never grow up. And they are 34 years old. To add to the insanity they caused, they didn’t check any ship systems and returned to their sleep chamber two days before we were scheduled to get out. Because they didn’t do their job, we went off course by about a half a light year – so it will take a little while longer to get to Sunset than we thought we had planned.

This is the not the first time I’ve had trouble with these two, sometimes I wonder how they made it this far. They didn’t even bother to clean up after themselves, the galley was a total mess, even the self cleaning sinks and counter tops were cruddy. Those two were this close to getting disconnected, but after a message burst to mission control, it was suggested that we pass on them the next time their turn to defrost comes up.

Once we got Wesley back in the ship, defrosted and recharged we had to reprogram him too. Lucky for us we had the right information to program him with. It took two weeks and during that time James and I switched off for twelve hour shifts. That put both of us in a bad mood, but we hung in there until it was time to wake the next ones.

Oh yeah, almost forgot. Our shadow is still with us. Wesley and James still think it is only a figment of our own ship. The Science Officer, Wade, and I think it is something else, maybe like a space traveling creature living off our exhaust. Well that is what I told the Captain, and he just laughed. I want to thank you dad for making me watch all those Start Trek space operas.

…message sent…

Saturday, March 31st, 2522; 2046 hrs

Hey Pop’s, yeah, it’s me again. I’ll tell you, this sleeping a year at a time is something I could get use to, but my body can’t. I am so hungry I feel like a ravenous monster when I get up. We woke on the first of the month, everything appeared normal, like it was supposed to, that thing that was following us is gone, if it was following us. It seems a lot colder now than it did the last time we were awake. I wonder if that is my imagination or if it really is colder. Wesley claims it is the recommended temperature and always has been.

Hey, guess what, we had to come to a full stop at the beginning of the week because one of our hull plates was loose. It was real fun walking in space to repair it. I felt like a slug on steroids because of the excitement of the moment and the slowness of my moving. It took three days to get this monster back up to full speed, so we are about a week behind schedule.

As to the Singlers, they behaved last time they were out, even waited for their reliefs to fully awaken. I am so glad they learned their lesson.

…message sent…

Sunday, April 4th, 2523 0700 hrs

Happy Easter Pops! I know they did away with that holiday once Christianity was over thrown for the more peaceful regime. I was reading some old history books I found packed away and found out about this one. I still can’t figure out how the rising of a profit would bring about the arrival of a huge rabbit that gave away snacks that rotted your teeth. I suppose we brought the books with us to share with any intelligent life form we find. I hope they can read Standard.

One thing I really shouldn’t tell you about – but don’t worry – I am sure it is just a fluke. We can’t get any readings from our aft sensors. It’s more like a blind spot, and one you can’t crane your neck around to see. There is one little spot where you can look down and watch the area. Unfortunately it is at the rear of the ship and closer to the engine housings. The heat is unbearable for a human – but perfect for an android. If you guessed that we threw Wesley back there to fix the issue – you would be right. The problem is he was sent back there six months ago, and we haven’t heard from him. Jim tried to go back and find him, but we must have been hit by a small piece of space dust because the only way back there is sealed. Whenever our hull is injured the bulk plates come down, cutting off that section, so the whole ship won’t lose any air.

If I could only get a visual of the area, I would be able to tell if it is okay. Since we are behind schedule as it is, Jim isn’t stopping the ship. There has got to be another way back there. Or so he says.

…message sent…

*Note: This is a work in progress, any ideas or suggestions are most welcome. And let me know what you think.

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About hutch1957

Brian Hutchinson was born in the cold windy city of Cleveland, Ohio over fifty-three years ago. Soon afterwards he found his roots, actually tripped over a few first, in Cincinnati, Ohio. In school, he quickly took an interest in literature and writing and over the past forty years has tried to improve his talents.
His hobbies, or what managed to interest him for a short time, have been photography, ham radio, movies, science fiction and TV. After surviving marriage for 22 years and two kids, he became single again and remarried a year later, inheriting two more kids. In his spare time he enjoys self torture and playing WoW, reading and watching mysteries and scifi.
He has had many professions, and has finally settled down as a Security Guard. Now he twitters and writes in his spare time, or while he is at work. (Which is really the same thing.)